As we count the days toward our reunion with the Divine on Shavuot, we learn how to receive every moment as a gift and make each one meaningful
Rabbi Yael Splansky
Holy Blossom Temple, Toronto
Rabbi Mark Fishman
Congregation Beth Tikvah, Montreal
Rabbi Fishman: The Omer was a sacrifice once offered in the Temple in Jerusalem on the second day of Pesach. It was a single measure of barley that began a 49-day count leading up to the holiday of Shavuot.
On the 50th day of the Omer, another bread offering was given. This time, it was two loaves of wheat. What began as a coarse sacrifice became 50 days later a more refined gift.
During these days, with no Temple to offer such sacrifices, we now count each day toward day 50 and offer a verbal blessing. What does the Omer count mean to you?
Rabbi Splansky: I couldn’t tell the difference between a sheaf of barley and a sheaf of wheat, but sfirat haOmer has become an important part of how I mark Jewish time.
I love that we count up from the sea to Sinai. The message is that Pesach and its newfound freedom is not the pinnacle of our sacred narrative – Sinai is. Our freedom was euphoric, but incomplete until we received the Torah and its promise of meaningful purpose. This gets at the core of Judaism’s strivings.
Rabbi Fishman: There is a technical detail of Halachah whereby if a person forgets to count the Omer for an entire day, then they have forfeited the opportunity to say the blessings on the subsequent days of the count.
Seen in a vacuum, this law appears to be nitpicking or just irrelevant minutia. However, understanding that we are building up to a conclusion that celebrates each and every step taken along the way, we realize that Judaism values the journey just as much as the destination.
Rabbi Splansky: Maimonides likens the counting of the Omer to a person who expects his most beloved friend to arrive on a certain day. He counts up the days, and even the hours, until his arrival.
I delight in this metaphor that God is waiting in anticipation for the Jewish People to come for a reunion each year on Shavuot.
Rabbi Fishman: You touch on something very powerful: God waiting for us. This is a theology that is not often spoken about and taught to us as children. As such, when we grow up, there can be a tendency to view God through the narrow vision of our childhood.
We were taught that God is all-knowing, ever-present and all-powerful. While these propositions are philosophical axioms, they miss the drama of who God really is.
God is someone waiting by the phone. God is the lover constantly checking his watch, waiting for the moment when his beloved will return. In some ways God, too, counts each day, waiting for our reunion.
Rabbi Splansky: We count time, not people.
Jewish custom and superstition warn against counting souls. For example, one might not tell you how many grandchildren she has. The minyan may be established by counting: “Not one, not two…” or by reciting a ten-worded verse of prayer, assigning one word per person.
But our days are numbered. We Jews are bound to our sacred calendar. Why the obsession with marking time? As the Psalmist beseeches God: “Teach us to number our days that we may attain a heart of wisdom.”
The counting of the Omer is an exercise in awareness: to receive each day as a gift and to be mindful of how to make every day count. As Psalm 90 says: “May the work of our hands endure.”
